Cartoon of the Day: Recession Risk Rising

"We’re likely to see sub 2% growth in Q4 (ends in a few weeks and the #GrowthSlowing data in NOV/DEC has been obvious)," Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough wrote in a note to subscribers today. "That means that the probability of a US recession by Q2 of 2016 continues to rise."

Stratospheric U.S. economic growth estimates of around 3%-plus have been consistently confounded by economic reality.

Meanwhile, Wall Street completely missed commodity-price deflation, (which has also run contrary to the Fed's prediction that it would all be "transitory"). The CRB index of commodities is down more than 20% this year.

No worries.

Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough reviews the worst calls

For good measure, here's one last example of the old Wall Street swing-and-miss. Oil has tumbled another 42% year-to-date. And yet, most 2015 storytelling began with the idea that lower "prices at the pump" would be a shot in the arm for consumer spending. That didn't work out so well. Consumption is slowing. (See the slide below from our October Q3 Macro Themes presentation.)

The list of Wall Street dogs goes on and on. We digress...

Luckily (for Hedgeye subscribers who stuck with our process) we tip-toed away from the consensus' face-plant and nailed investable ideas around #Deflation, #LateCycle / #GrowthSlowing and #LowerForLonger (rates). These are just a few of our non-consensus calls that proved correct, but confounded Wall Street throughout the year.

Another prescient warning came from Hedgeye Senior Macro analyst Darius Dale back in late July, right before the death knell drop in the S&P 500. The S&P 500 had just made fresh all-time highs and, as Dale wrote, we were seeing a breakdown in a number of key market signals.

That raised this simple question:

"... Sell everything? As predicted in our previous refresh, the recent bullish-to-bearish reversals in Emerging Market Equities, Foreign Exchange and Commodities were, in fact, a harbinger for similar breakdowns across the Domestic and International Equities asset classes. Our recent decision to add SPY to the short side of our thematic investment conclusions confirm how we are thinking about this risk in real time. At the bare minimum, it implies investors would do well to reduce their gross exposure and/or tighten up their net exposure to global asset markets."

It was another big call Wall Street missed. The S&P fell off a cliff, dropping 12% before it bottomed in late August.

Where do we go from here?

If you're sticking with the one Wall Street firm that nailed 2015, then watch next year. Our Macro team has been sounding the alarm on a coming recession that we think may take hold around the end of the first half of 2016. (Click here for our latest recap of the recessionary data stream.)

You'd think that after such a bad year, Wall Street would shape up and ratchet back their rosy forecasts.

EHS | "Transitory"

Takeaway:A negative factor cocktail made for a Perfect Storm in November Existing Home Sales. Importantly, December should see the weakness reverse.

Our Hedgeye Housing Compendium table (below) aspires to present the state of the housing market in a visually-friendly format that takes about 30 seconds to consume.

Today's Focus: November Existing Home Sales

We knew the risk was to the downside for Existing Sales in November (see: They Are Who We Thought They Were) as Purchase Application demand was relatively soft in October, the 1st TRID related impacts would be manifest and some modest downside still existed to full re-convergence with Pending Home Sales. In short, we knew it would be disappointing but the extent of TRID related delays and thus the magnitude of decline remained a wild-card.

With Existing Sales down -10.5% MoM and -3.8% YoY, the decline was, indeed, remarkable. It should also, however, be (to quote Team Janet) “transitory”.

Looking to next month, the negative trinity of factors highlighted above reverses as Purchase Applications saw a notable uptick in Nov/Dec, TRID related delays resolve and recoupling to PHS should all conspire to drive a reversal in this month’s reported weakness.

As Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, noted:

"As long as closing timeframes don't rise even further, it's likely more sales will register to this month's total, and November's large dip will be more of an outlier."

We infrequently side with stakeholders with an embedded panglossian bias but, in this instance, we’d agree with that expectation.

What has not been transitory is the tight inventory environment. Units of inventory declined for a 4th straight month, retreating -3.3% MoM and -1.9% YoY to 2.04MM Units (note – inventory is not seasonally adjusted so the YoY change is relevant, particularly around seasonal shifts in activity). On a months-supply basis, the noisy decline in sales more than offset the inventory retreat, driving months-supply +8.1% MoM to 5.14-months – marking the 39th consecutive month below the traditional balanced market level of 6-months. Ongoing supply tightness in the 90% of the market that is EHS remains supportive of stable-to-improving HPI trends in the nearer-term.

As always, we’re more interested in the Pending Home Sales data (Nov release = next Wednesday, 12/30) as a cleaner, more real-time read on the underlying trend in purchase demand in the existing market.

About Existing Home Sales:

The National Association of Realtors’ Existing Home Sales index measures the number of closed resales of homes, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops. Existing home sales do not take into account the sale of newly constructed homes. Existing home sales account for 85-95% of all home sales (new home sales account for the remainder). Therefore, increases in existing home sales tend to signify increasing consumer confidence in the market. Additionally, Existing Home Sales is a lagging series, as it measures the closing of homes that were pending home sales between 1 and 2 months earlier.

Frequency:

The NAR’s Existing Home Sales index is published between the 20th and the 22nd of each month. The index covers data from the prior month.

Joshua Steiner, CFA

Christian B. Drake

Share

Print

investing ideas

Risk Managed Long Term Investing for Pros

Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough handpicks the “best of the best” long and short ideas delivered to him by our team of over 30 research analysts across myriad sectors.

CALL TODAY (NEM) | HAPPY ASSUMPTIONS VS. SAD REALITIES

Please join us TODAY (Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 11AM EST) for a review of the bear case on Newmont Mining.

Dial-in

Toll Free:

Toll:

Confirmation Number: 13627484

For the corresponding slides please reply to the reminder email, and we will send them along.

Overview

NEM is typically perceived as a ‘premium’ gold miner, but, for one, we aren’t sure there really is such a thing. Long-term, NEM has been a secular underperformer; we expect that underperformance to continue. NEM may struggle with comparatively high costs in a declining gold price environment. We are not convinced that NEM’s 2015 cost reductions reflect the underlying production economics and expect the shares to be further derated by the market in 2016.

Highlights

Assumption vs. Reality: A look at key assumptions behind NEM’s costs and those of competitors

CALL TODAY (NEM) | Happy Assumptions vs. Sad Realities

Please join us TODAY (Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 11AM EST) for a review of the bear case on Newmont Mining.

Dial-in

Toll Free:

Toll:

Confirmation Number: 13627484

For the corresponding slides please reply to the reminder email, and we will send them along.

Overview

NEM is typically perceived as a ‘premium’ gold miner, but, for one, we aren’t sure there really is such a thing. Long-term, NEM has been a secular underperformer; we expect that underperformance to continue. NEM may struggle with comparatively high costs in a declining gold price environment. We are not convinced that NEM’s 2015 cost reductions reflect the underlying production economics and expect the shares to be further derated by the market in 2016.

Highlights

Assumption vs. Reality: A look at key assumptions behind NEM’s costs and those of competitors

Thank You!

Your request has been received

You have been added to our list and will receive an email shortly.

If you do not receive an email, please check your spam filter, and then email
support@hedgeye.com.
By joining our email marketing list you agree to receive emails from Hedgeye. This is a distinct and separate service form any of our paid service products. You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in one of the emails.